


Rise, Dear Hadrian

by Morcai



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: AU, Canon Divergence, Character Death, Gen, Grantaire is an idiot, Heroic Sacrifice, M/M, Second Person, colors are pretty important, if Enjolras was better at expressing himself, lots of imagery here, no, this still would have happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-27
Updated: 2013-07-27
Packaged: 2017-12-21 11:51:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/899988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morcai/pseuds/Morcai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Grantaire has silver burning under his skin, and Enjolras has always mattered most.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>The first time you meet him, the first time you remember meeting him, you have already spent years dulling the grey monster under your skin with drink. But still, when you see him it rouses, purrs sleepily and curls back up, more deeply asleep and closer to waking than ever.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Rise, Dear Hadrian

The first time you meet him, the first time you remember meeting him, you have already spent years dulling the grey monster under your skin with drink. But still, when you see him it rouses, purrs sleepily and curls back up, more deeply asleep and closer to waking than ever.

The feeling is new to you, and so you spend as much time as you can watching him, hanging on his every word, interrupting him, insulting him, because only then will his eyes rest on you and anything from him is better than everything from anyone else.

But he is an idealist, and you can tell from the moment he speaks of Paris rising how his tale will end. You are simply too dazzled to walk away.

So you are patient, you endure and you cling to the idea that Ovid was right and one day the pain of those pale blue eyes glaring at you will be useful.

You think that it will do little more than rouse the horror under your skin, but you are no grand philosopher, only a drunk who sometimes plays at being an artist and sometimes not even that. Sometimes you are only the steel haze at the edges of your vision and the instinct burned into you from an old baton and a thousand and one street fights you only half-remember.

When it all comes together, comes to a barricade and a dead gamin child you were fond of, you drink more than is usual even for you, because you are rising under your skin and you do not wish to see what carnage you will wreak if you slide under your own quicksilver tide today.

So you sleep, and the sound of cannon fire and screaming only lulls you deeper because those sounds are father and mother to you. Even silence would not wake you, for the silence of the dead has always rested in the lines of your palms, like street dirt or dried blood too deeply ingrained to ever wash out.

But the curve of his jaw crosses your mind, the perfect line you could draw in your sleep, that you have painted when so drunk you remember nothing of the process. You can almost hear his voice in your ear, whispering sharp edged words you cannot make out, and all you know is that your place is by his side. The veil of drunkenness that fills your mind and fogs the rising ocean tears itself apart. You rise, and the whole world is touched with a faint silver shimmer.

You know where he is, you always have, and so you stumble to his side, some words that are more his than yours tumbling from your lips like needles.

“Do you permit it?” you ask of him, and when he nods you almost pity him.  
He has no idea what you are capable of now, when the world is fading to charcoal and black, and he will hate you for this, once it is done.

But he takes your hand, laces his fingers with yours, and the heat of him is like a fire. The sun is rising, and the few rays that make their way through the café windows limn his hair in gold and you named him right, when you called him Apollo because you were too drunk to fit your mouth around the syllables of his name.

The men facing you fire, and your body moves of its own accord, though you would not protest. You shield the sun god you have spent so long adoring with your own body, holding your linked hands between your chests.

He is taller than you, and there is at least one bullet that should reach past you and into his flesh, but if you are not a god, you are not precisely mortal either, and you reach for the first time in decades and you grasp the color of your bones and eyes. You call the grey to befuddle the bullets, you pull lead to yourself rather than the one you protect.

It comes the instant you call, and pain blooms, an exquisite scarlet, red flowers in a world you have turned monochrome. But they bloom under the startled eyes of the sun, and you bare your teeth in satisfaction at that.

You are not strong enough to do what your blood and the monster you have unleashed call for. There are thirteen points of white and red in your back, and already the steel in you is melting, the grey of your vision burning out to ash-white. Instead of turning towards the rifles that were aimed at you, you watch his face as he realizes what you have done for him, to him. There is horror, and rage, but there is not the hate you thought would come, only a sorrow so deep that you know you have wounded him.

It hurts to realize this, that you have so injured the one you would do anything to keep safe. You stagger slightly, into his chest, and his knees collapse from under him. He does not unlace your fingers. You fall to the floor, and his face is the only thing you can see, that proud face, and there are tears in his eyes and you don’t understand why.

You died for him—that was the only thing you had left to offer him, after you failed him so many times.

You try to wipe away the tears beginning to gather, but can do little more than twitch your fingers. He presses a hand to the line of your jaw and you can feel every loop and whorl of his fingertips, the lines of his palm, by the minute variations of heat against your cheek.

It is hard to keep your eyelids open. You do it anyway, because this is the last thing you can offer him, and because you selfishly want to watch him until you no longer can.

Eventually, though, you cannot hold the fire back, and the world is ash white and you are gone.

**Author's Note:**

> This piece uses a bit of a universe I've been developing for around a year now, where certain subsets of the population have a certain mutation that leads to, among other things, minor telepathy, a tendency to be dependent on certain people, incredible ability to commit violence and critical undervaluing of their own lives. Grantaire is one of those people.
> 
> If you have any questions about the story, just comment and I'll be more than happy to explain.


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